Emergency workers in southwest Ethiopia scrambled yesterday to rescue thousands marooned by the latest in a series of deadly flash floods across the nation feared to have killed nearly 900 people.
With 876 people in southern, eastern and northern Ethiopia already reported dead or missing from flooding in the past two weeks, officials warned the toll was likely to climb higher with poor weather hampering relief operations.
Authorities appealed for international aid as search and rescue teams fought to help residents of 14 villages submerged by raging waters from the Omo River.
At least 364 people were drowned and up to 20,000 stranded in the region when the river and several tributaries swelled by heavy seasonal rains in the Ethiopian highlands burst their banks on Sunday.
Unable to reach affected areas by air, rescue workers, including swimmers and divers, were using boats in frantic attempts to reach those marooned amid fears that water-borne diseases like cholera may soon pose additional threats.
"The search and rescue teams have spent the night on the waters looking for survivors and bodies," said Tegaye Mununhe, chief police inspector for the Southern Omo region. "The search will continue day and night."
"We are now dispatching more boats with food, medicine, tents and health workers to evaluate the situation in places we have managed to reach," he told reporters by telephone, about 780km southwest of Addis Ababa.
"At the same time, we are dispatching another team to will help transport survivors we have already found to a higher ground," Tegaye said.
Overwhelmed by the crisis, regional authorities desperately sought outside help as UN agencies and private aid organizations pledged to assist.
"We are trying to do everything we can but the magnitude of the disaster is not something we can tackle by ourselves," Governor Shiferaw Shegute said late on Wednesday.
His appeal came after officials reported the number of deaths from the Omo River floods had nearly doubled from the previous toll of 194 with the recovery of 170 more bodies and said they expected a sharp rise in that figure.
"We are expecting the death toll to increase and we are preparing ourselves for more bodies, maybe even hundreds more," regional police spokesman Daniel Gezhegn said.
The flooding in the south came after rivers burst their banks in the east, where 256 people were killed last week and some 250 are still missing.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
RSS